BP MC252 well gushing oil – environmental disaster video courtesy of British Petroleum
Later today, BP is expected to try to reduce the flow of oil from their MC252 well by pumping heavy drilling fluids into the pipe.
Throughout the extended top kill procedure – which may take up to two days to complete – very significant changes in the appearance of the flows at the seabed may be expected. These will not provide a reliable indicator of the overall progress, or success or failure, of the top kill operation as a whole. BP will report on the progress of the operation as appropriate and on its outcome when complete.
You can watch the procedure live on the BP web site:
click here for live video. This is what it looked like earlier this morning:
WUWT has some very smart readers. How would you close the pipe? Hopefully you can do better than this :
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
@Bill Parsons May 28, 2010 at 2:07 pm:
Thanks. Not sure I understood what Les was saying though, in terms of pressure and resevoir size etc.
@Mark Wagner May 28, 2010 at 3:12 pm:
“So, yes the leak will eventually resolve itself when bottom pressure falls below ocean water pressure at that depth. That’ll take about 30 years, give or take.”
Okay, but they don’t really need that long, just enough time until the relief well is complete. I didn’t make that clear enough in my first post, but that is more what I was wondering about, whether there was any chance equilibrium could be acheived during that time.
On the likelihood of worsening the leak, I thought so as well until recently. I didn’t realize that the plumbing down there was so mangled, though, which is what I’ve been reading about the past couple of days.
Also, I understand that their liabilities were capped at some ridiculously low level (nothing comes close to even a billion, that I’ve seen). imo, that gives them quite a bit incentive to take risks, and more to save their oil than to spare people and the environment the damages. Worrisome, to say the least!
@DCC: Thanks for the explanation, DCC. I understand that there are two forces at work to counter the natural force from the formation. There is the extra weight of the heavy mud (barium?) plus the force of the pumping pressure being applied to the mud. Still, it would seem like trying to run a big track team faster down an up-escalator while trying to beat the velocity of the escalator. Hopefully, the junk shot they finally did may have slowed down the up-escalator to the point where they will finally get a large enough number of track team members loaded onto it and far enough down it to disable or stall the motor driving that escalator. Let’s hope there is a big number of track runners in reserve at the top waiting their turns to hop on and start running down that three-mile long up-escalator, and that none of them fall off on the way down.
Benjamin said: “I understand that their liabilities were capped at some ridiculously low level. imo, that gives them quite a bit incentive to take risks, and more to save their oil than to spare people and the environment the damages. Worrisome, to say the least!”
There is a legal cap of $75 million but the Chairman of the Board of BP has publicly stated that they will not hide behind that law.
The $75 mil cap is on personal damages. BP is responsible for cleanup costs, no matter what the cost. I can see sense in capping personal claims…how many billions have been lost in the stock market already by this spill? The claims could be endless. 75 might be too low, but what price would we all pay if oil companies could potentially be sued into bankruptcy? There’s damage there as well.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
May 28, 2010 at 8:17 pm
The volume/velocity of the leak on the ROV camera today looks subdued.
I agree: The BOP looks fractured like it got hit with an intense shock wave.
Maybe they could pump some cement mixed with mud (or iron filings) to increase the weight/density of the top kill material.
Suttles reports that they haven’t given up on top kill yet, but he doesn’t look too optimistic. Said they would keep trying until they succeed or conclude it’s a failure and then go on to the next plan. The LMRP is ready nearby.
DCC says:
May 29, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Suttles reports that they haven’t given up on top kill yet, but he doesn’t look too optimistic. Said they would keep trying until they succeed or conclude it’s a failure and then go on to the next plan. The LMRP is ready nearby.
——
REPLY:
Sorry, man, looks like Top Kill has failed.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2919914320100530
It’s LMRP or bust at this point. Damn shame, I thought the top kill would work! They threw the book at this one…..mud, junk, etc.
All agree that top kill wasn’t working. But it does not appear to have been because they could not develop enough pressure. They were able to stop the oil flow as long as the pumps were on. That leaves the suspicion that the mud was not heavy enough to counter the pressure at the bottom of the hole. More precisely, the pressure at the point where fluids were entering the casing was not high enough.
I’ve seen calculations on The Oil Drum that clearly showed it was possible to stop the flow if they could get a 13,000 foot column of mud into the well, provided the fluids were entering at the bottom. But if they couldn’t get that much mud in the well (couldn’t completely drive the fluids back into the formation) or if the fluids were going outside of casing nine and entering where it joins casing eight, they would fail. They needed that extra 1,200′ of mud column.
See http://tinyurl.com/365oay7 for a casing diagram showing that no cement is shown in that casing joint.
So we are left to conclude that something was going on down hole that made all the calculations useless.
The press conference with Suttles and Adm Landry raised more questions in my mind than they answered.
1) VP Suttles said they had pumped “more than 30,000 bbls” of mud into the well. Huh? They began the top kill with three barges on hand totaling over 90,000 bbls of mud. (COO Wells said that in his taped review earlier in the week.) A few days into pumping, a second load was “on the way” (Adm Allen.) That made no sense at the time. Now were are told they used one and a partial barge of mud. It doesn’t sound like much considering the amount being lost out the riser.
2) Adm Landry said that so far the on-shore damage was minimal (my term, not hers.) 30 acres of marsh and about 110 miles of Louisiana coastline were affected. The marshes are virtually unharmed at this point. No mention of how much oil was on the beaches, but the videos provided by CNN of sludge in the water have no credibility. They are showing thick goo with the consistency of a fresh gallon of acrylic paint. Same goo and same shot every time. No evidence of dispersant. To be charitable we can assume this was an early part of the spill because it does not contain any dispersant. But CNN has pulled this stunt before and I don’t trust them Remember the Persian Gulf spill when offshore platforms were sabotaged by Saddam’s military? Remember the CNN photos of a thick dark sludge lapping up on the Saudi Arabian shore and one lonely oil-slicked heron in view? They ran that same clip for ten days, then suddenly stopped it the day they announced that the slick had come ashore!
Trivial calculations by Mike Halbouty (1909-2004) at the time showed that the oil slick couldn’t be more than a few microns thick. So where was the video made? I researched it at the time and discovered that early in the war the Iraqis made their only incursion into Saudi Arabia. They stormed a town on the coast called Kafji. There was a small oil refinery on a seaside spit of land south of the city. US Marines and Saudi troops drove them back into Kuwait, but one or more of the oil storage tanks was damaged in the fight. CNN never identified the location or the cause of the spill.
Take it with lots of grains of salt. Without more details about what they are showing you, the video is next to worthless.
Let’s hope that the combination of dispersants and collection continue to keep this stuff away from shore.
DCC, I’m curious about the BOP assembly on the ocean floor, do you have a link to the details? I know it is Cameron International, but I haven’t found a very good site to review the engineering aspects.
Something’s wrong with that thing, as evidenced by:
a) Some have said that the Cameron BOP was modified for some reason by Transocean:
http://itsaboutenergy.blogspot.com/2010/05/subcontractor-transocean-reportedly.html
b) I was surprised from the outset that the ROVs couldn’t actuate the BOP valve mechanisms on-hand (or on-waldo!), since these were supposed to be routinely tested
My guess is that, in the the trauma of the original blowout and subsequent reactions, something broke in this thing, and I’m guessing that the drastic surgery of remove and replace with new BOP assembly will be needed.
I’m an ex-John Zink guy, where did you get your training? You know your stuff!
@CRS, Dr.P.H. who said: “DCC, I’m curious about the BOP assembly on the ocean floor, do you have a link to the details? I know it is Cameron International, but I haven’t found a very good site to review the engineering aspects. Something’s wrong with that thing …”
No, I’ve not paid attention to the BOP because it seemed clear it didn’t work when activated. Hydraulic leak for sure. Communications link? Drill stem coupling that wouldn’t shear? One of the two control units had a dead battery. And it did not appear to have been properly tested.
“I’m an ex-John Zink guy, where did you get your training? You know your stuff!”
Thanks, but I am just a geologist (Rice, AAPG, SEG) who has been around the oil patch about 55 years because my father was an independent in Houston. I cut my wisdom teeth on Christmas trees in Falfurrias, first learned analog geophysics as a “computer” on a land crew in Bay City and grew up loving the business.
BP, et al, are clearly culpable. I hope it doesn’t damage our nation’s determination to improve the energy situation.
I am concerned about relief well #1. Suttles reported today that is was at 12,000′ and nearing the casing. Hmm. Looks like they are assuming that the flow comes from TD. If the flow is at 11,848, the potential casing opening, they are in trouble.
Seems to me the prudent approach would be to enter the well at the highest possible problem point.
Any comments? What am I missing? OK, they can retreat and enter the well higher. That takes a lot of time. I’m not a PE. What’s the danger of entering higher the first time?
DCC says:
May 29, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Any comments? What am I missing? OK, they can retreat and enter the well higher. That takes a lot of time. I’m not a PE. What’s the danger of entering higher the first time?
—–
REPLY:
“Iraj Ershaghi, a petroleum engineering professor at USC, warned that continuing to inject mud into the well at extreme pressure could have broken pipes, or casings, deep in the well, causing it to collapse. Such a scenario could leave a ragged crater that could be difficult, if not impossible, to plug by any means, he said.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-20100530,0,841698.story
DCC, I’m not a professional engineer, but my guess is that a collapse scenario is what they are trying to avoid with their drilling strategy. Collapse of the casings would be awful to the max!!
They are dealing with broken eggshells under one mile of seawater….I can’t believe how difficult this must be. However, best approach is to be prudent & “do no harm,” and they seem to be following the logical path.
Glenn May 29, 2010 at 11:46 am:
“The $75 mil cap is on personal damages. ”
And suppose 10,000 people will be affected by this over the years. That amounts to a pidly $7,500 apeice. If we’re only talking about the destruction of some trailer parks, fine, but more people will probably suffer more individual damages than that.
“BP is responsible for cleanup costs, no matter what the cost… but what price would we all pay if oil companies could potentially be sued into bankruptcy?”
Don’t you find it funny that one side is capped so ridiculously low (people), while the other side (environment) is immeasurable? What I’m getting at is, they can slip through the immeasurable side quite easily, given that it is immeasurable, whilst getting off the hook pretty much for free on the measurable damages.
Again I say (and yes, this is just my warped and cynical imagination at work here!), they’ve every incentive to take risks. I’d even go so far as to say encouraged to be wreckless, and out of purely selfish motives at that. Lord knows, that’s a real problem in this economic day and age.
I plugged an artesian waterwell in Manitoba 40yrs ago that was drilled by an amateur. The 4″ hole had eroded to about 3′ at the top and a sizable lake had grown in the middle of a farm field. I was sent to plug it. We bought a hydro pole from Manitoba Hydro, rented a bulldozer to chain to a waterwell rig to which we had rigged the hydraulics of the mast to the pole. We ordered a truckload of ready mix concrete. We backed the rig into the lake on a tight chain, rammed the pole down the hole,and with a trough, fed in a truck-load of concrete and it turned off like a tap. Now this prety puny top kill, but I received a commendation from my bosses at the Water Control Branch, Manitoba Dep Agric. I think a pointed steel pipe filled with lead rammed through the crumpled well collar and into the well followed by ready mix loaded with lead shot might do the trick. Pass it on- reward? A round of beer for all WUWT posters and readers.
@CRS, Dr.P.H. May 29, 2010 at 9:11 pm.
I’m still trying to understand how it’s even possible to do it. The relief well has enough mud in it that it won’t blow out, but once they enter the flowing well, how do they set a packer in the middle of a hurricane? On top of that, they are dealing with two concentric casings, either or both of which could be producing. Seems like, at a minimum, the relief well would lose circulation between the first cut into the casing and finally setting a packer. It can’t be easy.
DCC says:
May 30, 2010 at 8:16 am
“I’m still trying to understand how it’s even possible to do it. The relief well has enough mud in it that it won’t blow out, but once they enter the flowing well, how do they set a packer in the middle of a hurricane? On top of that, they are dealing with two concentric casings, either or both of which could be producing. Seems like, at a minimum, the relief well would lose circulation between the first cut into the casing and finally setting a packer. ”
Why would the relief well lose circulation? If anything, the blowout hole would provide less pressure for the relief well to have to deal with, and also easier to continue to pressure heavy fluid into and around the bad well from the bottom up. If they set a packer I would imagine it would be for the relief final well casing, not between old well and new well casing. The intent is to flood everything with cement, surrounding formation and casings.
It’s true that if they intersect below the producing zone, that mud will stay put. I assumed they would then keep pumping to make mud rise up in the cased hole until it covered the production zone(s) and killed the blowout. At that point the oil-pressure warning light comes on and the high-pressure mud in the casing has nothing above it but a column of oil mixed with gas. That’s when the mud starts moving up the cased well. They have to have a way to stop the relief-well mud when the pressure drops. I suppose they do, I just don’t know the solution. The transition from reaming a hole in the casing to plugging/cementing the producing zone(s) must be very tricky one.
Well, after thinking about it some more, it probably doesn’t matter if they lose circulation. They are close to finished, if not finished reaming. The mud will stop moving when it is the same height in both wells. Then it’s time to pump cement into the cased well. By knowing the amount of mud that was pumped into the cased well before circulation was lost, they also know how much cement they will need.
Fascinating stuff!
DCC, I agree, this is fascinating AND hair-raising!!
I’m an environmental guy, not drilling/production engineer, and I sure don’t have any experience in deep water….the challenges these guys are facing boggle the mind!
The sense of frustration down there is palpable….from the administration and local folks, to the industry reps themselves. No matter how this resolves, it will change the face of hydrocarbon production for good.
The irony is that any reduction in drilling in the Gulf hits the people of southern Louisiana in their pocketbook. Fishing is important, but so it the oil industry. The loss of fishing income will be compensated, but the loss of oil income will not be. They are aware of this and have already begun complaining. The federal government must tread lightly.
DCC, I think I learned about the Oil Drum from one of your comments, here’s the technical ins & outs of the BOP stack I’ve been looking for:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6533
Amazing kit! I hope the latest fix (lower marine riser) stops this damn thing…
DCC May 30, 2010 at 9:42 pm : “The irony is that any reduction in drilling in the Gulf hits the people of southern Louisiana in their pocketbook. ”
A given argument, and a sound one to make, but the the oil prices, both the WTI and Brent, do not support it. Closing price have been trending down since late April, even before the BP incident occurred.
On top of that, there’s been two other oil disasters that I’ve caught wind of. One is in Alaska (the pipeline, iirc) and another being an oil tanker that had a spill somewhere in Asian waters (Philipines, iirc). And if my accquaintances in Canada are of any use, oil exploitation in Alberta has been on the decline the past year or so.
Where is the rise in oil prices?
Granted, BP prices are higher, but that is easily avoided by not buying theirs. And having trucked to and through the deep south many a time in my life, I know that BP isn’t the dominant the retailer down there.
Besides, who says there aren’t other places they can drill? Why did it have to be there? If the quantity there is as modest as it is, I have to wonder why they would even bother with the risks.
@Benjamin
The Gulf is one of the most important frontiers in the world. It’s prolific and it’s domestic. We do not expect anything close this amount of oil in, for example, the mid-Atlantic or mid-Pacific. There simply is no oil out there as far as the best geologists in the world know. Depth in not important. Provenience is critical.
why cant bp stab a tapered funnel type piece of pipe or smallerpipe in if it has been cut off at the vertical position. there is a company in florida that makes air float bags could they also make a ring then pump mud or concrete to expand the bagafter the vertical pipe would be in place dont know complete circumstances